Friday, October 30, 2015

A couple of
nights ago, I watch the Republican debate in Boulder. I haven’t watched any of their other debates,
but my grandmother-in-law was curious.
And so my wife brought home a couple of six packs, and we all made a
drinking game out of it. Every time they
said they’d cut out a major department or program – the Education Department,
the IRS, etc – we drank. Every time they
mentioned Nazis, Communists, or Benghazi, we drank. When anybody told a lie, we drank. (We missed quite a few, though, as I found
out later.)

I was drinking hard cider, Marisol was
drinking beer, and my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law were drinking
non-alcoholic beer. We were all pretty
tipsy by the end of the evening.

And although
I can’t form a real opinion until the Bad Lip Reading version comes out, it did
make me start thinking. It is very, very
tempting for an astrologer to make predictions about the election based on the
aspects at the time. And I’m not that
kind of astrologer, I don’t generally go around predicting things. I talk about the options. I describe all the different possibilities
that each transit can bring, and the various ways you can make good use of the
energy.

No
astrological transit is absolutely good or bad, and there’s no way to be
specific about how it’s going to manifest.
Most events have many nuances, with rippling outcomes over time. If an astrologer tells you you’re going to
walk out of your house and get hit by a falling anvil, and it happens, then
they’re very psychic. Or they happen to
know your upstairs neighbor is an Olympic medalist in the anvil toss.

Still, I
couldn’t help it. I had to look. And I have to say it looks pretty good for
Hilary on Election Day 2016. Uranus in
Aries is trining her Saturn, and this is a transit that brings together the new
and the old. This could mean that her years
of political experience will take her to a new beginning. It doesn’t look like an aspect that signals
retirement.

And there’s
more. Saturn in Sagittarius will be
trining her Mars/Pluto conjunction, and this Mars/Pluto conjunction is what
gives Hilary her stubbornness, her grit, and her ambition. This doesn’t necessarily mean winning an election,
but it does indicate that she is going to be really focused and strong around
that time. She’s not going to make a
false move.

On Election
Day, the asteroid Juno will be at the first degree of Sagittarius, the sign of
vision and inspiration, and it will conjunct Hilary’s Jupiter. This is a fitting aspect for the first female
president. Juno has been found to show
up a lot in charts connected to social leadership and public service, and it’s
important in Barack Obama’s and Bill Clinton’s charts as well.

So then
naturally, I’m wondering who her opponent is going to be. At this point, it could be anybody. None of the Republican candidates seem
particularly viable to me, but that’s just my perspective as a middle-of-the-road
lesbian feminist, somebody who doesn’t believe that guns are the most effective
deterrent to government overreach.

So let’s
look at the Republican convention in Cleveland next July, and see what kind of
aspects these folks will be fielding.

First of
all, there’s an element of surprise. The
moon/Pluto conjunction that introduces the convention indicates intense
power-brokering, still going on as it starts, and during the event, there are
hard aspects to Uranus (planet of change) from the sun, moon and Mars. So they may do something daring, mainly
nominate someone who doesn’t look like your mainstream white male
candidate.

Uranus in Aries
will be squaring Trump’s Saturn, and that looks to me like a very large
speed-bump. He’ll actually hit this around the middle of May, when it will
occur to him that he’s spending a heck of a lot of money, and not having as
much fun as he thought he would. (Pluto will
be squaring his Jupiter too, not good for finances.)

I think
Chris Christie will bow out in January, when Saturn squares his sun, when he’ll
be dealing with issues around health or money.
John Kasich is also likely to take a reality pill and bow out early in
the year, although he’ll have a good time at his party’s party in July. Huckabee will have his groupies following
him around at the convention, with Pluto sextiling his Saturn and inconjunct
his Jupiter, but it’s not his time to rise.

Things look
pretty intense for Rand Paul, with Pluto conjuncting his sun. Mainly, he’ll be going through an identity
crisis of some kind. Has he compromised
his principles? What are his principles? Who is he? This hits early in 2016, but he may try to
ride it out. If he makes a bargain with
his devils, he’ll still be a contender at convention time. But because the aspect comes back more
strongly at that time, the stress could get to him, and he could start
resorting to strong drink.

Rubio has
some nice aspects going for him, although they’re not as dramatic. But with Pluto opposing his Juno, I don’t
think he’s getting the top spot.

Jeb Bush is
a lightning-rod, with Pluto opposing his Uranus and Uranus opposing his Neptune. If he doesn’t make it to the end, it’s
because he has that feeling of being a pawn in the game. He’s already complained that it’s not the
gentleman’s game that his dad and brother got to play. My sense is that he will be passed over. However, Saturn is trining his Venus, so he
may end up being the compromise candidate, the one considered most solid, and
he’ll be most appreciative.

Ted Cruz’
aspects are actually pretty good at convention time. Pluto is trining his Saturn/Juno conjunction,
so it seems like he’ll be influential. Neptune
will be trining his Mars, giving momentum.
Pluto is also squaring his moon, and so he’ll get a lot of flak from a
particular bloc of people – like women. It
could hurt his feelings, but it may not derail him.

Things look
fairly exciting for Carly Fiorina. There
will be several aspects to her Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto, some easy and some
challenging, so she will also be a lightning rod at that time. I think she has a chance to get on the ticket,
probably as vice-president.

Ben Carson
has Saturn trining his Jupiter, so he could also be a compromise
candidate. The Republican voters could get behind the
idea of a more tractable African-American, after Obama. They could also calculate that it might get
African-American voters to stay home. Uranus
stations right at the inconjunct of Carson’s sun in July, and this could throw
him into the limelight. However, there
is a chance he’ll self-sabotage right around the time of the convention.

So, yeah, I
think a Carson/Fiorina ticket is possible, and it would be a way for the
Republicans to try to get back onto the moral high ground as far as diversity
goes, without compromising their core value of shoring up corporate wealth. And of course, I don’t think anybody is going
to fall for that. I hope.

Well, now I’ve
gone and done it. I’ve made
predictions. I can never help
myself.

This coming
month, there’s a Neptune/Saturn square in mutable signs. Saturn is about what binds us, while Neptune is
about our desire to be unbound, to connect with some beautiful, elusive cosmic
goodness. Neptune can be very escapist, and
we all need to get away from reality at times.
But how far away do we get?

So November
is a month of flux, of nervous energy, of sudden surges of faith and hope. Just like all those Republican candidates,
everyone has their little pet beliefs, often at odds with reality. As the month goes on, these beliefs will
become fuzzier, attracting the lint of allied convictions.

At the
Republican debate, we learned that if you say everything with confidence, categorically
deny whatever is inconvenient, and make abundant
use of scapegoats (like the press), you can “win the debate”. But
can you win the people that easily? Of course,
these candidates don’t need to convince most of us. They just need to make it all seem clownish,
irrelevant, stressful or confusing enough so that most people won’t vote. And that is what generally happens. Most folks stay home, symbolically expressing
their sense of exclusion from the corridors of power.

Pluto will
be in Capricorn for eight more years, and they will be lean ones, with a focus
on maturity, responsibility and accountability.
These are the years in which we fulfill a promise to our descendants, by
redesigning our social structure so that it can endure. In November, our beliefs and illusions bump up
against pragmatic realities, and we could sustain a few bruises. But this is just the beginning. We will have many, many occasions to separate
truth from lies, during the coming years.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

I’m not an earthy person. I’m watery.
But today, I’ve definitely spent too much time in the water; I’ve been driving around doing errands in the
rain all morning. I’ve been hypnotized
by the patter of the drops, the sweep of the wipers, the creeping traffic going
from one fuzzy light to the next. Hurricane
Joaquin is apparently lashing this whole side of the country with its soggy
low-pressure systems.

And today I had to give up my
sandals, and switch to shoes that actually covered my feet. Just a week ago, I was in shorts, and now I’m
wearing two sweatshirts and three pairs of socks. I feel sad as I close all the windows, trapping
the air until it’s time for the warmth to return.

I’m not earthy, but I have to be
realistic, to face facts. And that’s
what this month’s main aspect, Jupiter’s trine to Pluto, is all about. With Jupiter moving through Virgo, sign of
the carpenter, herbalist, greengrocer, and bee-keeper, there’s an emphasis on
dealing with what’s really happening.
The weather is changing. Quit
your whining and handle it, I tell myself.

Pluto has been in Capricorn for the
last seven years, and its focus has been on dismantling, exposing, and
rebuilding fundamental structures. Often, this has been violent, met with powerful
resistance. With Jupiter trining Pluto,
this work gets a little easier this month, and this is good for practical
activists. That is, it’s good for people
who prefer real-life results to ideological victories.

And when it comes to earth politics, it
seems that we have reached a new level of consciousness. New energy technologies are being developed and
put into use all over the world. They’re
getting cheaper, they’re becoming easier to use, and the momentum is
building. With the scientists, the Pope,
and the Democrats all sticking pins in it, the air is hissing out of the climate-change-denial
balloon.

But is it just about technology? New technology is like a rope reaching down
to someone who’s hanging off a cliff.
First, you have to get the person back on solid ground. But then you have to address the person’s
tendency to fall over the edge every once in a while. What’s going on here?

Of course, there are plenty of
passive men, earthy men, intellectual women, and aggressive women. But the male/female opposition, as it’s experienced
today on much of this planet, is the wallpaper of all our lives. We’re so familiar with it that we don’t see
it. And until we can unlink these
concepts, we will continue despoiling the earth.

It seems clear to me that men need to
become more like women. I know that it terrifies them, because of the woman/victim
connection which they themselves have propagated. But until we women are seen – and see
ourselves – as whole, the earth will also be seen as nothing but a backdrop for
war and conquest. We must respect the
earth as our brother, our sister, all at once - active, reasonable, aggressive,
fecund, nurturing, creative, knowledgeable.
The earth is all these things.

Jupiter in Virgo deals with the
little things we can do, in the process of this healing work. And every small shift in consciousness and in
behavior helps. Every time somebody
refuses their customary label, and instead honors their more authentic self, it
moves us towards a healthier way of living.
And there are lots of small actions that promote this, from a man
washing the dishes, to a woman speaking her mind in a crowd.

It’s not an entirely earthy
month. There is water as well, in Neptune
in Pisces. Virgo and Pisces are opposite
signs on the zodiacal wheel, and the concrete practical approach of Virgo is
opposed by the mysticism and emotional sensitivity of Pisces. Neptune has been in Pisces now for about three
years, and religious enthusiasm has become an ever-stronger force in our world.

Neptune in Pisces represents the
human ability to be hypnotized by our stories about ourselves. These stories are often amazing, beautiful,
and profound. There is poetry in
heartbreak, and many religious myths are powerful expressions of our most basic
sorrows. But there is always a contrast between these elaborate tales, and the
simple reality of a leaf, or a piece of wood, or a human hand.

And right now, in this moment in
history, there is an ongoing struggle.
The religious right is telling stories that are about the destruction of
the earth, and meanwhile, is ignoring the very real physical changes that will
leave us with less water, less land, and fewer resources. Meanwhile, they see themselves as the victims
of a war waged by scientists and atheists.

Religious expression is just going to
get stronger while Neptune is in Pisces, and it will be here for the next ten
years. But the world is becoming a
smaller place, as people move around more, and as they become change agents in
different cultures. And so we are all
brushing against each other’s sacred stories, threatening the spells that we’re
under.

When you’re hypnotized by a story,
there is only one story, and anyone who suggests differently is breaking you
out of your trance. It’s like being in a
movie, and somebody jostles you, and you’re annoyed. Neptune in Pisces is the film, and this month’s
Virgo planets – Jupiter, Mars, and later Venus - are the various jostling hands.

“Hey, don’t you think it’s getting
awfully hot in this movie-house!”

“Be quiet! Look at the screen! He’s just about to save us all!”

But there is a change happening this
month too. With Pluto trining Jupiter,
reality will lend a hand. Maybe it won’t
be necessary for the whole movie-house to come crashing down in flames. Maybe we can turn away from our fantasies,
acknowledge the fear and need and terror that gave birth to them, and really
look at each other. And maybe then we
can acknowledge that we really do live or die together, on this planet.